Overview

Advanced Heart Failure Care

The Center is located at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee. We have a national reputation for clinical excellence, innovation and training the next generation of medical providers.

Our compassionate, experienced team provides unmatched experience in diagnosing and treating heart failure. And our exceptional results mean you’ll be back on your feet in no time.

World-Class Care

Unmatched Heart Failure Expertise

When you or your loved one is experiencing heart failure, you want answers. You might wonder how your condition will affect your daily life and what treatments are available to help you. Most of all, you want to know you’re in the right hands to receive expert heart care.

Patients and doctors choose us because we offer:

Deep experience: Our surgeons have performed over 875 heart transplants over the life of the transplant program. We also have implanted more than 760 artificial heart pumps. Only 10 programs in the world have that level of combined expertise in treating advanced heart failure.

Outstanding results: Volume means nothing without successful results. Our heart failure programs’ results have beaten national averages for the past 15 straight years. That means our heart transplant recipients have had better-than-average survival and heart transplant success as measured 1 year, 3 years and 5 years after transplant.

Responsive treatment: We individualize clinical care for each person’s specific needs. Our team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year, and we receive referrals and requests for a second opinion from all over the country. Our interdisciplinary team works closely to quickly organize your care, so you can be evaluated for lifesaving options.

Compassionate care: We take time to understand your wishes and the preferences of you and your loved ones. We then strive to create a treatment plan to accommodate these goals. If conventional and unconventional treatments are no longer effective, we offer a full-time palliative care process. We will help you and your family set goals and live comfortably with dignity.

Clinical research that matters: Our doctors investigate and design research questions that will improve your care today and the care of people tomorrow. We have participated and lead in every new clinical investigation involving artificial heart support (called LVADs). We are investigating how to lower the risk of patients with heart failure when they undergo routine surgery, why people develop heart failure when receiving treatment for cancer and even how to better risk assess patients enrolled with a health maintenance program. We believe that every person who wishes to participate can benefit from our research program.

Training the next generation: We take an innovative approach to educating the next generation of providers by making them part of an integrated, multidisciplinary team. We believe that the care of patients with chronic illnesses like heart failure requires a highly integrated team with expert specialization. Our training environment is uniquely suited for those who want to care for patients as part of this type of team.

Lifesaving Treatments for Heart Failure

Ventricular Assist Devices (VADs) & Artificial Heart Pumps

Aurora has treated heart failure with implanted mechanical circulatory support devices since 1986. In fact, we’ve been a part of testing almost every new device that has come on the market. You can be confident we know which artificial heart pump will work best for you.

Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO)

ECMO is a lifesaving technology that can circulate patients’ blood outside the body while they are awaiting treatment such as a heart transplant. We have ECMO therapy available in our emergency department, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Refer a Patient

There is no need to refer patients from Milwaukee and anywhere in Wisconsin to another state or region for heart failure care. In fact, one of the nation’s best programs is in your backyard.

We provide a shared model of care in which we evaluate patients and make recommendations. We then coordinate a patient’s plan of care with their referring physicians, allowing them to maintain their longstanding relationships with each other.

The very best way to make certain that your patients receive high-quality care for their heart failure is with an early referral. Then, together, we can take good care of them.

Advanced Heart Failure Care

Pioneering Treatments for Heart Failure

At the Donald and Rosemary Tendick, Sr., Clinic for Advanced Heart Failure Therapies at Aurora Health Care, we are passionate about lifesaving treatments for people with late-stage heart failure, building on our 50-year legacy of heart care.

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